CIO Network: Learning the Skills to Be a CEO

VMWare CEO Pat Gelsinger talks about how he acquired the skills he needed to go from engineer to the role of CEO. He speaks at the CIO Network in San Diego, Calif.

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

... when you are aspiring ... there were ... delays and ... sealing the deal were deficient in ... at least one particular area to really be made that up to you and I talked about previously ... how old that list first identified and also what was done about ... the ... idea is to join the EMC I'd be without several board members every board meeting and make a point says thou one-on-one ... the chapel of them go home I doing feedback inputs ... and the one in particular I met with Jackie ... and ... Jack ... the the use the union see his dad Dick Egan was the founder of the company and Saddam from a normal common going to be known to be any input ... Jack says ... to text ... me ... two things in all I can deal this is so full of awesome guy compared with this number one ... wordy East Coast company ... me dressed like a nice cup of tea ... for what ... ok will know why why ... we're going to Nordstrom's like we can take care of this ... motorcycle was far ... more stocks if you need more sun and I you know I'd like a eulogy to a deal ... so ... other than the second was far more interesting he says corporate finance ... his sister to run this company ... you know you just gotta know more about it ... three of them is this of what we do you and how we invest and how we acquire ... etc ... know the ... key bits and neo ... and yes the ... or Yemen due season of our allies and TCF that the supple language of an engineer ... by trade ... so I talk to Joe Tucci the chairman ... Mao VMC ... and that he got me a private tutor on corporate finance ... of Trevor Harris cld a finance professor ... and a slight took corporate finance up of lectures one about once ... every two or three weeks to one pm the Telepresence with a ... hip Trevor ... to get in before finding and so one oh one ... of that summer my wife and I never forget that our summer vacation he prefers ... in the Nordics ... and she's reading some book audible some romance or something like that and I'm on here with the one hundred page corporate finance textbook on the perimeter ... radios were looking at the fjords aligned perfectly good to wake myself ... write an awsome you know reading through all this stuff but it was still making the ... job better than filling and some of those gaps of ... my career background to aspire to that will see ... and why was that so important mean it's it's was it so that you have credibility ... with the board as it had credibility with the analyst community and ... all of the above the current CEO doesn't have a choice don't fight the fight to talk to customers ... for my guy's that's a perfect day for me ... Bachmann financially and was ... not a good day ... but it's a required element of the CEO ... gets to represent the company gets to go be with them ... you also have to become more personally serious like ... acquisitions ... like cap all allocation strategies those type things ... and he'll those prayers I did have my background ... and you're just finished a one point five billion dollar acquisition of AirWatch illnesses buildings are big capital decisions about was the kind of thing that I have gone ... up in my castle is important Both that ... in reality ... as Wells the expectations of the poll has proven to be very high ...